The sun is bright. A caucasian grandma sits on the grass. She smiles at the camera. Caresses two small dogs. It’s a peaceful summer day. Three seconds later, your brain notices something is off. Her face morphs slowly. Her mouth twitches. Suddenly, the dogs turn into reptiles—yellow Komodo dragons, maybe. One has two heads. They open their mouths wide. Granny starts picking their scales. And then she starts to eat them.
The lovely video is now a nightmare, one that is as real as the original candid shot. I feel uneasy. I feel a pinch of horror. The bizarre tornado doesn’t stop there: The woman, now Asian, leans forward as the slimy animals start moving, transforming into a Jet Ski that granny rides into a river, leaving the scene.
I don’t know what I just watched, but as I flick my finger up, I go deeper into this Instagram rabbit hole. There are more posts. Some of them are strange satires that play on the idea of the illuminati controlling the world featuring everyone from Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin to Kamala Harris and Elon Musk. Others show disgusting monsters that feel too close to reality. All live in the same uncanny valley that is as deep as the Mariana Trench. Suddenly I’m trapped in this Bermuda Triangle of stupid, freakish, and odd, and I can’t help but keep looking, feeling awe and disgust at the same time.
I’m not alone in this twisted dimension. As Oslo-based interdisciplinary visual artist Edmond Yang tells me through Instagram: “At the moment, two of my videos have over 300 million views combined, with an accumulated watch time of nearly 100 years. It’s surreal to think I’ve consumed a century of human attention.”
